The Leftover
by Evablue
Summary: “Sean, could you… could you turn around?” She swallowed nervously as her face flushed pink. SeanEmma


The room was taut with tension, only the sound of their stilted breathing breaking through the air. Sean's clothing was rumpled, and Emma's hair was spilling around her face in small tangles as she held her shirt up against her chest. Both their feet dangled off the edge of the bed at they sat in the company of their own thoughts. If they moved only a few inches toward each other they would be touching again; the space between them was still charged with the energy of their aborted encounter and the tingling in their skin had yet to settle.

Emma shifted before speaking first. "Sean, could you… could you turn around?" She swallowed nervously as her face flushed pink.

It was a silly question to ask since he'd already seen what was beneath her shirt. He had even begun to slip his hands behind her back to undo the clasp of her bra when he had stopped suddenly, pulling away from her with an airy breath that was half regret and half unfulfilled desire. Still, she couldn't find the strength to slip her shirt back on when he was sitting right next to her.

Sean turned to her and raised an eyebrow but didn't offer a comment. Instead, he stood up and turned around so his back was facing her own. His foot begin tapping on the ground a second later and she found herself comforted by the noise.

Her hands finally moved again as she pulled her shirt back on, taking an extra moment to smooth down her hair and readjust her skirt back into place.

"You can turn back around."

She heard the rustle of movement but kept her back to him, feeling even more heat rise into her face. He came to sit beside her again but she didn't want to look at him. Was he angry with her? Disappointed? The idea make her queasy and she felt even more the urge to sink into a hole.

He placed a tentative hand on top of her own, giving it a light squeeze.

"Em, if I pressured you in anyway…"

"You didn't," she broke in quickly.

She hadn't forgotten tonight had been her idea, not his. Or that he'd asked her _twice_ if she was sure before he'd actually allowed himself to remove her shirt.

Sean moved from the bed to squat on his knees in front of her, his larger hands enclosing around both of hers. She still couldn't meet his eyes, looking every which way but directly down.

"Em," Sean tried but got no response. One of his hands moved from her own to softly cup the side of her face, holding her steady and forcing her to meet his eyes. "Is it because you're nervous?"

_No_, Emma answered in her head. _I mean, yes. I mean, God… Why do you have to be so perfect and make this so hard?_

Sean was watching her closely but wasn't able to make heads or tails of the expressions crossing her face. He decided her silence must have been a yes. "Em, you know I'll be - "

"I slept with Peter," she said quietly, unable to hold it in anymore.

"You slept with Peter," Sean mirrored dumbly.

"Just once," she fought to say past the lump in her throat, "Last year…" She tried to ignore Sean's hand dropping from the side of her face while the other went limp over her own. "He made a picnic," she said, as though that explained everything.

Sean raised an eyebrow, not connecting how the two were at all related.

"_All that food_," she further clarified "It was… sweet and he was excited to be doing that for me. I didn't, I didn't know what to do."

Sean stood up slowly from where he was crouched in front of her, turning around and rubbing his hand over his eyes. He turned back to her a few seconds later. "This was during…" Sean couldn't finish, his eyes clouding over.

"It was before my trip to the hospital, before anyone knew about Peter and I…I, I didn't mean to go that far. I just knew I couldn't eat all that food. " She stopped, closing her eyes tightly.

There was no real way to explain it, that little voice in the back of her head that would make her do anything if it meant avoiding filling her stomach. The one that had been with her each time she'd hidden food, each time she'd forced it back up her throat and into the toilet…

"Emma…" He placed a light hand on her shoulder but she flinched back.

"You don't understand… Even now, I still don't eat like a normal person. I have to remind myself all the time that eating is okay, that it is what I need to do. That food isn't the enemy." She turned back to him, her face contorted with pain, loss, and the fear that she'd never be quite whole again. "That one day I'll wake up and I'll be _normal _again."

Emma swallowed, both nervous and relieved to finally have the truth no longer be locked inside of her. Thankful to finally be sharing the demons in her past that still haunted her despite all her efforts to escape their grasp.

Sean looked like he was reeling, attempting to take everything in but he was _still there_. His feet were firmly planted and it didn't appear as though he had any intentions of leaving, of walking away from her.

It gave her the confidence, the affirmed trust in him, to continue; and she had to continue. She had no other choice, now that she had opened up that door. There were far too many more words inside of her, ones she'd never said to anyone before - not even Manny. They needed to be released and to be said. Maybe then she wouldn't have to carry them with her.

"Emma?" Sean asked, feeling the small shift.

Emma stood up slowly, this time turning her back toward him and fixing her gaze on the wall. She couldn't look at him as she said this. But she had to say it.

"It was cold and awkward. He put a blanket on the top of the picnic table but it was still..." She felt a tear make its way down her face. "At so many points I wanted to stop, knowing this was all wrong. That it wasn't how I had ever pictured my first time. But I, I… just kept thinking I'd have to _eat_ if I stopped."

She wasn't crying because Peter had stolen something to her; she had stolen something from herself.

Sean seemed suddenly angry, his blue eyes turning stormy in a way she was all too familiar with. She waited for the recriminations, the angry words directed her way. He finally said, in what seemed like a growl, "Why didn't he stop you?"

"Peter?"

Emma laughed humorlessly, shaking her head. "What teenager boy, after his girlfriend practically throws herself at him, would stop?"

"I did," he said in a low whisper, looking at her directly so she wouldn't miss the hard gleam in his eyes. The one meant for Peter.

Emma stilled, knowing it was true. He'd stopped tonight, even though she would have kept going… Kept going past the lump of anxiety in her throat, the shaking she couldn't seem to stop, and her mind pulling her back to that night with Peter. She'd frozen up, stilled quickly and abruptly before seeming to go on automatic, her hands and lips numbly continuing to stroke and kiss but she had disappeared.

Into that place where nothing could touch her, where she floated away from herself but her body kept going. She'd thought no one could reach her there, that no one noticed when she crawled inside of herself.

But Sean had noticed. Sean had pulled away from her, even though she could tell it had taken more than he would ever tell her for him to move his hands from the back of her bra.

_My Sean_, her heart seemed to thump.

She had to swallow a sob, this time her tears coming from a good place.

Sean mistakenly thought her sob was one of pain and this time he bridged the gap between them to pull her into his arms, his hands moving up and down her back in a soothing motion. He buried his head in the crook of her neck, dropping a soft kiss on the collar bone.

Emma's arms pulled Sean closer, if that was possible, closing her eyes and allowing the feel of him holding her to wash around her. When his lips met hers in a soft, butterfly kiss she allowed the tide to pick her up and carry her away, thinking about nothing else that night beyond Sean.


End file.
